Tiếng Việt
Hello everyone!
As usual, every few months we meet again in iCup’s column of rambling silly thoughts. This is an introductory question for those starting to care about how to roast good coffee.
The first thing we need to agree on before answering how you roast coffee is understanding the basic definition of “What is coffee roasting?”
To clearly understand this concept, perhaps we need to analyze deeply into each group in the market currently sharing the action of roasting coffee. This is a reverse analysis method but very understandable for most people.
Note: The article content is entirely subjective!
COFFEE ROASTING FOR OUTSIDERS
“Roasting coffee is like roasting peanuts: just throw coffee in a pan and roast until it smells fragrant, bite-test until it’s crunchy and tasty.”
The characteristic of outsiders is they don’t care about defining what coffee roasting is. However, if given some green coffee beans, they’ll try putting them in a pan and stirring like roasting peanuts. Then they’ll throw that coffee away because it’s undrinkable.
Outsiders, though they rarely roast coffee, make up 99% of people ready to consume coffee worldwide. They are the love and hope of us in the industry.
COFFEE ROASTING FOR BEGINNERS
For those just starting to learn superficially: “Coffee roasting is putting coffee in a roasting drum, adjusting fire and airflow so that within some time period (from 5 minutes to 5 hours) coffee will crack (or refuse to crack) before being dropped.”
The characteristic of coffee roasting beginners is they often ask questions in groups like “I just finished roasting a batch, is this color beautiful yet?” or “Please try this Costa Rica I just roasted, 6-minute roast, dropped 60 seconds after first crack and brewed with my new Flair Pro 2.”
These people truly create joy for many others and are the foundation building home coffee groups. Very worthy of appreciation and encouragement! For them, coffee roasting is simply a hobby, and hobbies don’t need right or wrong.
COFFEE ROASTING FOR INTERMEDIATE ROASTERS
“Coffee roasting is controlling the ratio of chemical reactions occurring throughout the entire roasting process (Maillard, Caramelization, Development…) and ending the roast batch with an evenly brown color as desired within a predetermined time frame.”
The characteristic of intermediate roasters is owning fairly substantial roasting machines, opening small roasting workshops, and roasting coffee as a means of earning money.
These members are active in café groups and have great potential for future progress (because they roast more, they usually have opportunities to upgrade knowledge when encountering roasting problems). They’ll likely become masters in the near future.
Keep it up, everyone!
COFFEE ROASTING FOR MASTERS
“Coffee roasting is a continuous process of controlling each physicochemical reaction based on deep understanding of the coffee beans being used. Calculating heat points for each coffee sample and different purposes, calculating timing for each processing method, deeply intervening in each coffee sample’s advantages and disadvantages that must be handled during roasting.”
A coffee sample will be cupped, evaluated, analyzed, and scored very professionally by them.
The characteristic of coffee roasting masters is owning many modern machines, impressive Artisan roasting analysis charts, and having clearly visible contributions to society. They may also hold several SCA coffee certifications, teach roasting and brewing classes, and own high-standard coffee farms that usually aren’t available for domestic market sales. In summary, they’re very influential voices in the coffee world and easily seen on social media.
Masters are idols for many young people, endless inspiration helping many in our coffee industry, and very effective leaders for those wanting to go deep into this path.
COFFEE ROASTING FOR ARTISANS
“Coffee roasting is the process of using temperature to act on coffee beans to simulate the physicochemical transformation from green to ripe fruit on the tree, creating the unique sweet fragrance of fruit.” (Like how green mangoes are sour but ripe ones are sweet)
For artisans, coffee roasting is nothing other than helping coffee beans express their inherent essence. Like sunshine helping flowers bloom in countless colors. Each flower has its beauty! If they can’t bloom, they can be turned into fertilizer, which is also very useful.
Artisans actually still must understand coffee bean essence like master roasters, making judgments based on extremely deep knowledge and skills after many roast batches. (This green coffee sample shows corn-rice aroma, displays sturdy structure and unbroken complex sugars --> Need to extend the protein breakdown to amino acids during fragmentation to enhance raw materials for aroma reactions. Or this coffee sample has dark green color showing high tannin concentration causing astringency --> Should age longer before roasting to naturally reduce tannins or process tannins in early roasting stages…). They can roast any coffee sample well with just a glance while their (extremely sensitive) nose continuously analyzes green beans.
The characteristic of coffee artisans is they can use many methods from ancient to ultra-modern for roasting coffee. They might pan-roast or screen-roast, but the coffee they use always has the best quality. Almost no one can surpass them when using the same roasting methods. These people usually don’t care about certifications, but their knowledge is profoundly bottomless. Their analytical ability is cosmic level. They know everything, and what they don’t know means you shouldn’t ask!
Artisans are usually very poor or very rich but pretending to be poor. Equipment is completely basic, often drinking dark-roasted geisha for easy bathroom trips, light-roasted Ethiopian to skip breakfast, Vietnamese coffee when feeling snacky.
They stand behind famous farms and cafés in the industry, channeling their accumulated power to support and continuously observe to help whenever teammates face difficulties. They are silently admirable, lovable, respectable people without personal gain.
COFFEE ROASTING FOR THE UNUSUAL – ICUP
This is a special group that refuses to reveal their coffee roasting definition (actually already confessed everything above). Because their philosophy is very simple: Coffee roasting that tastes good when drunk is good roasting, tastes bad is poor roasting. But good or bad depends on the drinker, not the roaster. (Really nonsensical sophistry – but not without logic, right?)
Therefore, their responsibility is delivering suitable products to the right sophisticated palates. Anyone criticizing our roasting as poor should self-reflect! Because our coffee sells for… the highest prices in the entire market.
Birds of a feather flock together – sophisticated people, come here and resonate with our coffee brewing…
Do you know where you fit among these positions? Whoever you are, you’re an indispensable part of our coffee industry. Be proud, continue learning and developing for an extremely magnificent future!
Hehe… Hello and see you again!
